One of Richard King's outstanding works.

Stained glass artist Richard King also designed Irish stamps

STAINED glass artist, stamp designer and oil paintings artist, Richard King, was born in Castlebar on July 7, 1907, writes Tom Gillespie.

His talent as a creative stained glass artist can be viewed right across the world while in Mayo his works in local churches are The Assumption (1952), Stations of the Cross (1953) and the Old and New Testaments (1964) for the Church of Our Lady Help of Christians, Swinford.

King’s last stained glass window in Ireland was I am the Resurrection and the Life (1973) for St. Patrick’s Church in Newport.

This very talented man was a gifted stained glass artist but also excelled in oil paintings as well as designing Irish stamps.

Richard King was born in Castlebar, the second son of Margaret and John James King. His father was an RIC officer who retired to Westport Quay during 1920.

According to the Our Irish Heritage website, King was educated at the De La Salle Brothers School in Castlebar until 1917, at Palmfield National School in Carracastle up to 1920, and then at the Christian Brothers School in Westport until 1925.

In 1927 the family moved to live at 10 Claremont Place in Dublin. Initially King had wished to become an architect but studied life drawing with Sean Keating, then design/illustration with Austin Mulloy from 1927 to 1928 at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.

His tutor, Austin Mulloy, a friend and colleague of Harry Clarke, recognised King’s artistic ability and that he would be highly suited to stained glass.

Mulloy introduced King to Clarke in March 1928 and King joined the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Studios. When Clarke died in 1931 King became chief designer of the studios and in 1935 he was promoted to studios manager.

He was instrumental in creating stained glass windows for Ireland, Britain, Canada, United States and Australia.

Perhaps his greatest work, while working at these studios, was the set of windows he created in 1937 for St. Peter and Paul’s Church in Athlone. Those six windows depict St. Patrick, Mary Crowned with Stars, St. Joseph, Sacred Heart, Purgatory, and a series of portraits.

King established his own studios in 1940 at Number 2, Hawkcliff, Vico Terrace, Vico Road, Dalkey, where he produced oil paintings and stained glass art.

One of his early commissions was the Kevin Barry memorial window in University College, Earlsford Terrace, Dublin. He created religious illustrations for The Father Matthew Record up until 1972. There are 73 of his paintings at the Capuchin Friary, Church Street, Dublin, including several series of the Mysteries of the Rosary.

He created works of art for St. Mel’s Cathedral in Longford and for St. Jude’s Shrine at Faversham in Kent, England.

He produced The Stations of the Cross in oils on masonite for St. Joseph’s Church in Carrickmacross in 1951, and during 1942-1954 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception at Foilmore near Cahirciveen in Co. Kerry.

There are also two small windows to be found at St. Brendan’s in Birr, Co. Offaly.

On the 25th anniversary of 1916 King produced art that depicted the figure of Éire as a woman with crown, cloak and Celtic brooch.

He designed 12 stamps for the Irish government, beginning in 1933 for ‘The Holy Year’, and a stamp to commemorate the golden jubilee of the GAA in 1924, Constitution and St. Patrick in 1937, Four Masters in 1944, Thomas Davis in 1945, Davitt and Parnell stamps in 1946, four airmail issues in 1948/49 and James Clarence Mangan in 1949.

Richard King died on St. Patrick’s Day, 1974, at his home in Raheny, Dublin. His widow Alison survived him (she died in 1981) and their three sons, Kenneth, David and Richard, who became artists.

His Kevin Barry memorial window in UCD is shown in a 44-page tribute to his memory published in 1975. It contained many illustrations, plus a compressive list of his works.

As stated in the appreciation, his Magnus Opus was a stained glass 86 inches wide and 14 inches high (1957/58) for the St. Thomas Moore Chapel of the University of Western Australia.

Richard King’s colleague William Dowling noted King’s ‘urge to depict subjects from Celtic mythology’. His first, a black and white illustration, published in the Capuchin Annual, ‘were of subjects chosen from the ancient stories of our race’.

Paintings by Richard King are represented in the Burns Library’s (Boston College) King holdings, by an oil portrait of Boston Pilot editor James Jeffrey Roche (1847 to 1908) plus a watercolour of Roche’s birthplace, Mountmellick, Co. Offaly.

In 1945 Victor Wallington, publishers, issued a set of 26 original King Christmas cards.

During 1950, at the installation of three King windows in the James Jeffrey Roche room at Boston College, an exhibition of Richard King’s art was displayed.

The Queen of Heaven was an original coloured drawing for a stained glass window, gauche on paper, signed 1950, with lower panel depicting the Angel appearing to Mary for St. Columba’s Church, South Perth, Australia.

Included in a rare booklet are King’s works commissioned by the author Monsignor John T. McMahon.

Seventy years after the Kevin Barry memorial window was erected in Earlsford Terrace it was moved to a new location at UCD, Belfield, on June 7, 2011.